---- ALLAN'S PERSPECTIVE ---- The left wing drives me crazy, and the right wing scares the shit out of me!

Allan's Perspective is not recommended for the politically correct, or the overly religious! Some people have opinions, and some have convictions ..., what we offer is Perspective!

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special." Stephen Hawking.

Monday, August 17, 2015

IS A REAL LIFE ALIEN LIVING RIGHT HERE ON TERRA?

Dear Readers:

I have mentioned a few times in past blogs that ya don't have to speculate on what an actual ALIEN would look like since we have lots of really "alien" looking things right here on good ol' Terra-firma. One of the examples I used was the OCTOPUS, since this thing is about as strange as ya can get!

WELL GUESS WHAT, BUNKY?

It turns out the octopus might REALLY BE AN ALIEN! (Maybe their ship crashed here thousands, or even millions of years ago!!!!!)

Get a load of this!

Not to send you into a meltdown or anything, but octopuses are basically ‘aliens’ – according to scientists.Researchers have found a new map of the octopus genetic code that is so strange that it might actually be an “alien”.
The first whole cephalopod genome sequence shows a striking level
of complexity with 33,000 protein-coding genes identified – much more than
in a human.
Not only that, the octopus DNA is highly rearranged – like cards
shuffled and reshuffled in a pack – containing numerous so-called
“jumping genes” that can leap around the genome.
“The octopus appears to be utterly different from all other
animals, even other molluscs, with its eight prehensile arms, its large
brain and its clever problem-solving abilities,” said US researcher Dr
Clifton Ragsdale, from the University of Chicago. "The late British zoologist Martin Wells said the octopus is an alien.
In this sense, then, our paper describes the first sequenced genome
from an alien.”
The scientists sequenced the genome of the California two-spot octopus in a study published in the journal Nature. They discovered unique genetic traits that are likely to have played a
key role in the evolution of characteristics such as the complex
nervous system and adaptive camouflage.
Analysis of 12 different tissues revealed hundreds of
octopus-specific genes found in no other animal, many of them highly
active in structures such as the brain, skin and suckers.
The scientists estimate that the two-spot octopus genome contains 2.7
billion base pairs – the chemical units of DNA – with long stretches of
repeated sequences.
And although the genome is slightly smaller than a human’s, it is packed with more genes.
Reshuffling was a key characteristic of the creature’s genetic
make-up. In most species, cohorts of certain genes tend to be close
together on the double-helix DNA molecule.
A gene is a region of DNA that contains the coded instructions for making a protein.
In the octopus, however, there are no such groupings of genes with
related functions. For instance, Hox genes – which control body plan
development – cluster together in almost all animals but are scattered
throughout the octopus genome.
It was as if the octopus genome had been “put into a blender and
mixed”, said co-author Caroline Albertin, also from the University of
Chicago.